Redesigning, Redefining Work Summit

Overview

Convened by Stanford University’s prestigious Clayman Institute for Gender Research, the Redesigning, Redefining Work (RRW) Project and Summit bring together top academic researchers, corporate leaders, policy makers, and media representatives to set a research-based agenda for redesigning work.

The RRW Project and Summit address the need for research to support efforts to restructure workplaces so that they are more effectively aligned with the lives of today’s workforce and organizations are better able to harness diverse talent for their future success.

The project brings together top academics, industry practitioners and policy experts to set the agenda for redesigning and redefining work in order to meet these challenges. It aims to inspire new research, raise broadscale public awareness, and disseminate best practices already in place.

Background

Over the last half century, the composition of our workforce has undergone tremendous transformation. Women have flooded into the paid labor force, more households are made up of dual earners, more people are continuing to work well into later life, and millennials have arrived on the scene. Despite significant changes in who works, companies and organizations have not adapted to these new realities by changing how work gets done. As a result, instead of being supported and inspired, employees are often constrained and undermined by out dated thinking which equates commitment with long hours and productivity with face time.

To harness the full potential of the labor force, we need to reimagine work. We need to redesign workplaces so that they are better aligned with the lives of the people who work in them. And we need to redefine what makes a good and successful employee so that performance is no longer measured by how many hours employees put in but by how effective and efficient employees can be. The RRW Summit brings together leading academics, corporate experts, policy makers, and the media to share research and insights, discuss best practices and workable solutions, raise public awareness, and set a new research agenda for the twenty first century.